Soolin
by Isobel Morgan
Summary: I wrote this years ago, as a backstory for Soolin. This deals with her childhood, the murder of her family and leads up to her taking revenge. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 now added
1. Chapter 1

**Part 1: Prologue**

Soolin would never forget the day that the people came down from the clouds.

She was out working the fields with her mother and sister when she looked up from the patch she was tending to see three black specks silhouetted against the sky.

Her mother, bending awkwardly over her six-month pregnant stomach to reach the earth, noticed the change in her younger daughter's action and straightened up to follow Soolin's gaze.

As she saw the three spots, growing steadily larger, she tensed.

"Maya," she said to the older girl, her voice soft.

"Run back to the house and get your father. Take Linnie with you. Fast."

"But Mother-" the fifteen-year-old adopted a familiar stubborn pose.

"No arguments, Maya. Just go. Now."

The girl sighed, rolling her eyes.

"Alright."

She grabbed Soolin by the hand and pulled her away, her coltish teenage legs easily outmatching those of her eight-year-old sister.

"Come on Soozie bugbrat."

"Slow down Maya," the little girl protested. "It's not fair, you run too fast."

"And you're too slow. Come on, keep up!"

Anya watched her daughters race away across the fields, the fair-haired little girl struggling to match the pace of her older, dark haired sister. Then, tightening her grip on the rake she held, one hand straying to her swollen middle, she straightened her back and turned to face the approaching threat.

She watched the dark spots draw closer and closer, until the three flyers landed no more than a few hundred metres from where she stood, but she did not move until the girls returned with their father.

Nivek was tall, strong, a good farmer and a man who had fascinated Anya from the day she had met him, fascinated her to the extent of letting him convince her to sign their family up for relocation to Gauda Prime six years ago.

Nivek stepped up to her, putting his arm around her shoulder and drawing Soolin close to his other side. Soolin was in every sense her father's daughter and it was clear she adored him, often trading chores with her sister so she could work alongside him.

He always knew how to make her laugh, and he loved to hear her laughing.

She was a happy child, unlike Maya, who was at present going through various teenage difficulties and often lapsed into a sullen silence while her sister smiled and laughed.

Anya reached out and put her hand on Maya's shoulder, bonding the family unit together to face the approaching enemy.

A man stepped out of the lead flyer, accompanied by his female pilot, followed by two more men from the other two, smaller flyers. All were wearing some kind of uniform and all were armed.

"What do you want?" Nivek demanded as the four of them came closer, his tone hostile.

"What kind of a welcome is that?" the man replied, his manner mocking.

He removed the protective glasses he wore to shield his eyes against the harsh spring glare. Various peculiarities within the environment and atmosphere of Gauda Prime meant that in spring and summertime it took new arrivals several days to become accustomed to the effects of the rays of the sun; this man's eyeshades marked him out as an off-worlder, new to the planet, which was itself a little unusual. Since the settlement of the planet had begun, the only people who came here came to work the land or to take away its produce. As an agricultural world, GP had little of interest to off-worlders, which made settlers automatically suspicious of those they did not know.

"Don't tell me you never received my communication?" the man continued, in the same tone.

"I sent personalised messages to every household in this district and I would be very upset if I found out all my effort had gone to waste."

Soolin glanced up at the man's face. Now that he had removed his eyeshades, she could see his eyes and they frightened the little girl. His eyes were empty, devoid of all feeling and they reminded Soolin of stories told to her when she was tiny, stories of people who lived but were not alive. Shells of people who felt nothing. This man embodied all her infant nightmares of such people threatening her, but Soolin was determined not to show her fear. She wasn't a baby any more and she wouldn't let her father down by acting like one. All the same, she tightened her hold on his hand. Nivek squeezed his daughter's hand in response.

"We received it," Nivek replied, levelly. "But we're not leaving this land. We were given title to it when we arrived and we don't want to sell."

"Ah. Perhaps then, my communication was not as clear as I had intended. The offer to sell was merely an... opening gambit, shall we say. Have you heard nothing about the changes going on here?"

Nivek smiled, but it was a pale imitation of his usual expression.

"We live privately. By choice."

"Then allow me to enlighten you. A few months back, a routine follow-up survey of this miserable backwater of a planet found something rather unexpected. Do you know what Anithat L-33 is?"

"It's a kind of mineral," Anya spoke up. "But what does that have to do with us?"

"That," the man turned his brilliant but empty smile towards Anya.

"Is what the surveyors found here. It's not terribly rare, but it's generally found only in very inhospitable environments, which makes it rather expensive to quarry. Whereas here," the man spread his arms, indicating the tree-lined, green and calm surroundings.

"Well, you can see my argument, can't you? It would be much easier to establish a mining complex here."

"Except for one thing," Nivek pointed out. "This is our land. We own it, we make our living from it. We won't be leaving it, no matter what you find is buried underneath it."

"Ah. I had hoped it would not come to this. I hoped you would be sensible, as others have been. We are prepared to offer a decent price for your land. Enough to allow you to buy passage away from here and perhaps start again?"

There was no reply. The family in front of him stared back, impassive.

"It pains me to have to say this."

The man took another step forward. His back-up did the same, drawing their weapons, but holding them down at their sides.

"My employers have stressed that they place considerable importance on the acquisition of this mineral. By any method. As I said, some of your neighbours have seen sense and taken the chance to leave now. I should hate to have to resort to... other methods of persuasion."

"You're threatening us?" Nivek shouted back. "You have no right to come here and threaten us; this is our land, our home!"

"For now," the man replied calmly. "But I would advise you not to rely on that for too long."

An uncomprehending silence met his words.

"You haven't heard. Then let me explain. I said that my employers were willing to take whatever steps were necessary in order to obtain the mineral resources. In light of this, a request has been placed to have Gauda Prime declared an Open Planet."

"Open Planet?" Anya repeated, her eyes widening. "You're not serious?"

The man smiled again, this time at Nivek.

"What an intellect your wife has!" he declared, his tone patronising.

"You should be proud to have such an intelligent woman hoeing fields by your side. Where did you hear of the Open Planet system, my dear?"

"We're farmers," Anya replied icily. "Not fools. We're not raising our children in ignorance either."

"No. I imagine not."

The man's eyes roved over Anya's unignorably pregnant stomach, then slid sideways to take in Maya and Soolin.

"So you understand what it would mean if such a process was to be put through? What could happen to your adorable family?"

Anya's hand gripped her eldest daughter's shoulder tighter, causing Maya to wince.

"That couldn't happen. No-one would approve methods like that. This planet was turned over to settlers freely."

"That was before anyone was aware that there was Anithat L-33 here," the man pointed out, sounding almost apologetic.

"Things are very different now."

"Why?" Anya spat. "Because somebody thinks it's worth something? Because of money? Greed?"

"Not everyone has such lofty morals as yourself, dear lady," the man replied. "Those of us who are not... farmers, we believe that money is rather more important than whatever muck it is you grow here."

"Leave," Anya commanded, stepping forward, her eyes like flint.

"You're not welcome here. Leave now."

The man seemed a little taken aback that his main opposition came from a heavily pregnant woman, but a brief glance at Nivek showed that the sentiment was backed up there too. Aware that, for the time being at least, the law still came down on their side, he backed off, gesturing for his back-up to holster their weapons.

"This is not the last you will hear," he warned, his face twisting into a sneer.

"If you do not leave soon, you will wish that you had taken me up on my offer, very badly."

He turned on his heel in a theatrical manner and stalked back towards his flyer, his uniformed back-up following him in silence.

The family remained where they were until the flyers had taken off once more.

"What's an Open Planet system?" Maya demanded, turning to her parents.

Anya was standing paralysed with anger, her fists clenched tight, her breath coming hard and shallow. Nivek put his hands on his wife's shoulders.

"Calm down, sweetling. They've gone. It's alright."

"No, it bloody is not alright!" Anya exploded, swivelling to face her bemused husband. "You don't have any idea, do you? Do you know what will happen if they declare Gauda Prime an Open Planet?"

"I just asked that," Maya pointed out huffily, but her parents were too intent on their personal argument to notice their daughter.

"Tell me," Nivek said, trying to placate his fuming wife, thinking that she should be careful of her blood pressure this late in her pregnancy. Anya had lost two unborn babies in the last few years but he was also well aware of what her reaction would be if he were to bring that up just then.

"Later," Anya replied, her anger deflating like a punctured balloon as her eye fell on Soolin, clinging to her father's hand, her blue eyes wide and frightened.

"We should get back to the house first."

The family's farmhouse was located on a corner of their land, where the fields of crops ended, running into the forest that separated them from the town. Nivek and Anya, with the help of Nivek's father, had built the house themselves, using supplies given to them by the Settlement Council and making best use out of the trees that also belonged to the family as part of their title to the land. Any wood that was not sent away for timber was theirs to use. The house was small, but well contained, surrounded by a yard and a wooden fence to keep the animals inside.

As soon as the four of them had reached the farmhouse, Anya began to gather up possessions like a woman possessed.

"What's going on?" Ghearl, her father-in-law asked her, puzzled.

"What is it, my dear?"

"You're taking the girls to the flood house. You should be safe enough there, at least for the time being."

"What?!" This was from Maya.

"No, he bloody isn't! I'm not being shipped off like some little kid without a word of explanation!"

Anya's hand flashed out and slapped her daughter across the face.

"You'll do as you're told!" she yelled back, spots rising of colour in her cheeks, but the moment her hand made contact, she seemed to shrink back. Anya and Nivek had always tried never to hit their children.

"I'm just trying to protect you, can't you see that?" she murmured, her quiet words filling the room in the hushed silence that had fallen. Maya stood staring at her mother in disbelief, her hand pressed to her stinging cheek, then turned and tried to run out of the room, but Nivek caught her first.

"Your mother's upset," he told his daughter. "Come back in; we need to talk this through."

He guided his daughter to one of the wooden stools by the table, lifting Soolin up to place her on the countertop next to him. She snuggled into her father's embracing arm, taking comfort from the contact in the strained atmosphere of the family kitchen.

Anya had sunk down onto another stool, ashen-faced.

"Is anyone going to tell me what this is all about?" Ghearl asked, utterly lost.

"We just had some visitors," Nivek began. "You remember the communiqué that arrived a few days ago?"

Ghearl's eyes turned to the battered box in the corner that contained the ancient radio/communicator assigned to the family when they had arrived, six years previously.

"About someone wanting to buy the land? Yes, I remember. What happened?"

"The person who sent it turned up in the fields. But it isn't as straightforward as it sounded in the communiqué."

"What do you mean?"

"It isn't the land they want."

This was from Anya, her tone dull, her eyes haunted and frightened.

"They found mineral wealth underneath much of the land on Gauda Prime, and now they want to extract it."

"But we have title to the land," Ghearl said, not following his daughter-in-law's words. "Surely they don't think anyone here will sell?"

"You're right; they don't," Anya agreed, her voice still flat.

"That's why they've applied for Gauda Prime to become an Open Planet. The offer of sale was just a way of testing whether we would leave willingly."

"Open Planet?" Ghearl queried. "I don't think I've heard of that."

"None of us have," Maya contributed crossly. "Only Mother knows anything about it and she won't say anything."

Nivek shushed his daughter, gesturing to his wife to continue.

"It's something I heard about back on Earth," Anya began to explain with a sigh. "When I worked in maintenance for an admin firm. There were some documents a clerk was dealing with concerning the establishment of an Open Planet system on one of the Outer Worlds. He left them out one evening after he'd gone and I got curious, so I read them. What it is… it's a total suspension of the law. If a planet is declared Open, then it has no law. Anything and everything is technically allowed, because there are no laws left to prevent it or make it illegal."

"Anything?" Nivek repeated, unsure of what Anya meant.

"Everything," his wife confirmed. "Theft, assault... murder."

"Murder?" This came from several family members.

"Yes. Now do you see why I'm so concerned? If they get rid of the law, there'll be nothing to stop that odious man and his friends from coming here with their guns and taking the land from us. And it won't just be them. Anyone who wants to take it will be free to try, by any methods they choose to try. Any at all."

For a moment, there was silence in the kitchen as its occupant took in Anya's words.

"Well then what are we waiting for?" Maya broke the silence. "Tell that man we'll take his money and leave! I don't understand why we came here in the first place - if he wants a mudhole like this, let him have it! There must be better places we can find to live."

"There is no money," Anya tried to explain, tiredness leaching into her words.

"It was a lie to try and get us to leave without having to go to the trouble of passing the Open Planet designation. They just want us off the land. There might be a transport off Gauda Prime, but I doubt we'll get anything else."

"So? Anything would be better than this!"

"Maya!" This was Nivek, shocked and angry at his daughter's reaction.

"I thought we brought you up better than that! You know how important this land is to us. Without it, we're nothing, just as we were back on Earth."

"At least I was happy on Earth!" Maya spat back, shooting up from the stool and confronting her father.

"I had friends there and people didn't try to kill us for our house! The only good thing here is Salis - in fact, I'm going to see him now. Maybe his family will see sense and take up the offer."

She tried to stalk out of the kitchen but Nivek barred her way. Maya pushed at his arm to try and get past, but her slight teenage frame was no match for her father, standing a good foot taller than her and as much wider, muscles developed from years of toiling in fields and felling timber.

"Alright, let's calm down!"

Ghearl tried to appeal to his family.

"Anya, explain the rest to us. What do you think will happen now?"

"I don't know," Anya confessed. "If they don't get approval, then we'll probably be alright; the law will still be on our side, but if it is passed... I don't know. I don't want to think about it."

"What happened to the other planet? The one you read the documents about?"

"I only saw a little, it didn't say much. Just that once Open Planet designation was passed, it was up to the individuals involved how their business was conducted. So if it does happen-" Anya swallowed, her fear stamped clearly across her face.

"If it does happen, then we can't rely on anyone else to help us. It'll be up to us, and us alone to protect our land. The people we saw today will come back, maybe with reinforcements, and they will try to make us leave."

Anya glanced nervously at her husband.

"They may even try to kill us. That is why I want the girls out of here."

"Do you really think that will happen?" Ghearl asked, still not quite taking in what his daughter-in-law was telling him.

"I hope not. With all my heart, I hope not. But if it does, I want you to take the girls up to the Flood House. It should be safer there; with any luck, nobody else knows about it, and there shouldn't be much to interest mining companies that far up in the hills."

What Anya spoke of was the house, little more than a shack, built on high ground where the family sat out the rainy season that brought their part of the planet to an absolute standstill for weeks on end, flooding all lower ground and waterlogging the farmland. Although it made living in the Sanna province problematical at times, it also left the land significantly more fertile and productive when the floods drained away.

"And what about you?" Ghearl asked. "What will you do?"

We can't leave the land unprotected. We have to make a stand, show them that we won't leave easily. Maybe then they will leave us alone."

"Do you think that will work?" Nivek asked, his doubt all too clear.

"I have no idea." Anya scrubbed a tired hand across her aching eyes.

"But you can see why I'm afraid, can't you? Why we need to get the children out of here if we can?"

"I'm not a child," Maya snapped petulantly.

"Yes you are," Anya snapped back, just as irritably.

"And as my daughter, you will do as I say. You're going to the Flood House with your grandfather and that's final."

"What about Salis? Why can't I go and stay with him? He can look after me."

"Salis is a seventeen year old boy without a brain in his head," Anya explained wearily. "He couldn't protect you against a rainstorm. Listen to me Maya, I'm talking sense."

"Sense?" Maya spluttered, indignant at the suggestion. "How dare you insult my boyfriend? You don't know him like I do. He wants us to get married one day."

"Then you're definitely not going to stay with him," Nivek cut in, immediately threatened by this development.

"Listen to your mother, Maya. We know what's best for you."

"No you bloody don't!" Maya exploded in anger. "I'm not a kid anymore so don't try and baby me like you do Soolin. She's still a brat, but I'm fifteen! I'm old enough to make up my own mind, live my own life!"

"Not when there could be people out there trying to kill you!" Anya yelled, finally losing whatever remained of her temper.

"Do you have any idea of what could happen if Gauda Prime becomes an Open Planet? Any idea at all? The whole planet will be lawless."

"Then why don't we just leave?" Maya shouted back.

"And go where? With no money, no home, what would we do? You think people in town will take us in, that we'll be safe there? No, the best thing to do is to wait it out. You and Soolin go with your grandfather to the Flood House, your father and I will stay here and defend the land until they restore the law. With any luck, it shouldn't take too long; once they've installed their mines, they should be eager to bring the law back in. We should be able to hold them off that long, but if the baby comes before then, I'll send him out to stay with you until it's safe again."

"I don't like the sound of that," Ghearl put in. "If what you say is true, things could get pretty nasty. Are you sure the two of you could defend the house by yourselves?"

"What choice do we have?" Anya replied, sounding wearier than ever. "We have weapons. We can hold them off if we have to."

Then her eyes sparked up a little as a new thought occurred to her.

"My parents. I'd forgotten about them. We should try and contact them. They can help you with the children."

"What about their land?" Nivek pointed out. "I know they don't have a great deal, but they may also be asked to leave."

"We'll have to deal with that later. If necessary, when everything is back to normal, they can move in here for a while, until we can sort something better out."

"I think all this can wait a little," Nivek said firmly, stepping over to his wife.

"We have time. Even if this designation does go through, it won't be overnight, will it? There's no need to do everything now. You're tired, sweetling. Don't risk hurting yourself or the baby."

Too worried and strained to care, Anya nodded her agreement, leaning against her husband as he lifted her from her stool and led her away to lie down. A still fuming Maya stomped out of the kitchen, heading for the bedroom she shared with her sister, slamming the door behind her.

Soolin herself sat still on the counter where her father had put her. She'd been quiet throughout the whole discussion, not, as her family thought, because she was too young to understand it, but because she was taking everything in and thinking about it very carefully. It was all very clear to her; bad people wanted to take their house and their land, and they would hurt her family to get it. That the family should fight to keep what was theirs was obvious, and despite the fact that she was only eight, Soolin also had no intention of running away and hiding in the Flood House.

She had no memory of Earth; she had been tiny when they left, so Gauda Prime was her home and Soolin understood exactly how important their land was. She watched her grandfather go over to the trans/receiver in the corner, trying to tune it into any broadcasts put out by the partial government. As a world only recently settled, the government of the planet was still in a rather temporary stage, operating on little more than basic supervision - those who lived furthest away from any kind of urban settlement were virtually independent.

Its legal system had been set up using guidelines set by Earth, and had changed little. The Federation left the planet mostly alone, preferring to let the settlers sort themselves out; the only real interference came in the form of shipping out produce. As very little of the planet wasn't concerned with agriculture, there was no real need for government beyond local issues. But still, occasional broadcasts were made to inform the settlers of any changes made, so it made sense to Ghearl that any hint of the Open Planet designation would come from there first.

"Granpa?"

Ghearl was startled by Soolin speaking up; he had forgotten she was still there.

"Yes, Soolin? What is it?"

"I don't want to go to the Flood House. I want to stay here and fight off the bad people."

Ghearl stopped in his tracks, stunned by the words coming from his little granddaughter's mouth.

"What? You can't mean that-"

He caught himself, crossing over to her.

"Look, it could get very bad here, Linnie. It's best if you do what your parents want and come away with me to where it's safe."

"But I don't want to go!" Soolin shouted, kicking her heels against the counter in a rare show of temper that Ghearl believed came from her mother's side. Certainly Maya seemed to have inherited Anya's short fuse, although so far Soolin had seemed to favour her father's good nature.

"Don't be silly, Linnie. Your parents and I know what's best for you and your sister. You're too little to help, and I know your parents will only be happy if they know you're safe."

"I don't care!" Soolin yelled, kicking all the harder. "I don't want to run away!"

"What's all this?" Nivek came back into the kitchen, leaving Anya resting in their bedroom to find his youngest daughter throwing a tantrum at her grandfather. Soolin stopped kicking immediately as her father came over to her, dropping her eyes in guilt.

"Soolin? What are you doing?"

But Soolin wouldn't look up, leaving Ghearl to explain.

"She doesn't want to go to the Flood House."

"Why not?"

"She says she doesn't want to run away."

"I want to stay here with you and Mamma and fight," Soolin piped up, finally meeting her father's eyes, not recognizing the shock that registered in them at her words.

"What do you mean, Linnie-bird? You can't want to stay here. Bad people are coming."

"I know," Soolin replied, impatient in her determination.

"Granpa said. And I was listening when you all said it before. But I want to stay and help you fight the bad people. I want to make them all go away and leave us alone."

Nivek knelt down in front of his daughter, taking her tiny hand in his giant one.

"Oh you do, do you? And what makes you think your Mamma and I will want you here? You're far too little and you'll only get hurt. We want you to be safe, far away from here with your granpa. Will you do that for me, little Linnie-bird?"

Soolin opened her mouth to protest again, but Nivek cut her off, squeezing her hand.

"It's very important to your Mamma and me that you and your sister are safe. We'll look after the house if you look after your sister, okay? Make sure that Maya goes with you and doesn't get into any trouble."

Soolin screwed up her face, trying to decide, then she nodded.

"Good girl."

Nivek picked his daughter up, sitting her in her favourite vantage point, perched on his hip with her arms around his neck.

"Now let's go and feed the piglets, shall we?"

Soolin cheered instantly at her father's suggestion, forgetting the tension of the situation. She loved the animals the family kept, delighting in their company. She drummed her fists against her father's chest in joy.

"Oof. You know you're getting pretty big for a little Linnie-bird. If you get any bigger, I won't be able to pick you up any more."

"I'm not going to get any bigger," Soolin announced, laying her head on his shoulder.

"I want to stay small forever, like a piglet."

"You certainly wriggle enough to be a piglet. Come on kiddo."

After Nivek and Soolin had gone, Ghearl returned to fiddling with the communicator in the hope of hearing a report. When he eventually found a broadcast, it was not good news. Although it did not mention the Open Planet system directly, it did state that all settlers were recommended to leave Gauda Prime for their own safety.

He kept what he had heard to himself until the girls were in bed and the house secured for the night, then he called his son and daughter-in-law to the kitchen and told them what he had heard. The three of them stayed up most of the night discussing what they were going to do, and come the morning, they had made a plan of sorts.

Anya had been unable to raise her parents on the communicator, so she wanted Nivek to ride over to see them first - she had wanted to go herself, but Nivek refused to allow her in her condition. When he had returned, then Ghearl would take the girls away, regardless of any protests either of them had. Nivek set off that morning, not coming back until almost nightfall the following day. He was clearly exhausted, not just from the long ride, but from the fruitless arguing he had done with his in-laws.

"They don't believe any of it," he told his wife in resignation.

"I told them everything I knew about the Open Planet designation being passed, but they wouldn't believe anything like that could happen and they don't want to leave. They said we could send the girls to stay with them if we were worried, but that they were too old to go traipsing about to the Flood House when it wasn't necessary."

"Maybe they'll be alright. Like you said, they don't have much land. Maybe the miners will leave them be," Anya replied, but her eyes betrayed her concern.

"Perhaps," Nivek reassured her. "But we don't have much time left now. We need to get the girls out of here as soon as possible; it's a long walk to the Flood House and they'll have to move quickly to get there before the mining corporations arrive."

"Walk?" Maya queried. "Aren't we taking horses? That would be quicker."

"Yes it would," Nivek agreed. "But they're also more conspicuous. And besides," he exchanged a brief worried glance with his wife.

"Your mother and I might need them if things go badly here."

"What do you mean?" Maya demanded.

"I mean, if we can't fight them off, we may have to make a run for it and join you at the Flood House. It may still be possible to get passage off Gauda Prime if we have to, even if it's only as far as Gauda Minor. At least we'd be safe there."

"So why don't we just go now?" Maya shouted; it seemed to the rest of her family that she never did anything else anymore.

"Why are we wasting time and risking our lives for this patch of useless earth?"

But if she was hoping to provoke her parents into an argument, she was to be disappointed. The quiet but steely determination in her father's voice represented the resolve both of them had to defend their land and protect their family.

"We can't let them take this land if it can be prevented," Nivek told her, his tone allowing no argument.

"Now stop this. Go and pack your things, and then go to bed."

He shooed her and Soolin off to their room to gather whatever they felt they couldn't live without, leaving Ghearl and Anya to argue about provisions. The Flood House was well stocked, but Anya was afraid that there would not be enough should the family have to retreat there for any longer than a few months.

Eventually, all arguments wound down and by early the next morning, the three of them were ready. Nivek and Anya stood in the doorway of the house to see them off, but Ghearl turned back, taking his daughter-in-law's hand.

"You will take care, won't you?" he persisted. "I know how important this plot is to you, but it's not worth your lives. Don't take any risks you don't need to."

"We'll be careful, I promise," Anya replied.

"Good. And look after that grandson of mine too. I hope to see him before long."

He patted the bump where the baby lay, embracing Anya and then Nivek before turning away again and leading his granddaughters away.

Anya and Nivek stood on the threshold until the three of them were out of sight, their arms around each other's waists in support.

"Do you think they'll be alright?" Anya asked, her tone more fearful now that her daughters were out of her protective range.

"I'm sure they'll be safe," Nivek told her, not sounding quite as convincing as he had hoped. "My father'll take good care of them."

"I know he will," Anya replied. "But that's not all that concerns me. Even if they escape everything, even if we do... I'm worried."

"About what?" Nivek asked, his brow creasing in incomprehension.

"Our girls. Maya doesn't understand why the land is so important to us. I don't know if she'll ever be happy here. Perhaps... perhaps we should never have left Earth."

"You don't mean that, Anya. You remember what it was like back on Earth; stuck inside domed cities, written off as inferior, useless because we were born into the Gamma grades. What kind of environment's that to raise a child in? Regardless of what is happening now, the choice we made then was the right one. And Soolin likes it here. I'm sure the new one will be happy too, and Maya will learn to be content."

"Soolin... yes. Our little infant warrior. Weren't you worried when she came out with all that?"

"I don't believe she understood what she was saying," Nivek assured her.

"She wanted to look after us. That's a good thing."

"A good thing?" Anya repeated, her voice strained. "That kind of thinking will get her killed! Nivek, she's eight years old. She's still a baby. How could she even think about getting involved in a fight like this?"

"Anya. Listen to me. She doesn't understand what's going on. They see things in such black and white terms at that age. Our little Linnie-bird just wants the bad people to go away."

"But-"

"That's why it's for the best that she and Maya will be safe far away when all this kicks off," Nivek cut her off firmly.

Anya sighed, some of the tension in her body draining away, but her worry hanging over her like a storm cloud.

"What do you suppose'll happen now?" she asked.

"I don't know," her husband confessed. "But we had better make preparations for anything we can expect. Come on sweetling."

They went back into the house, closing the door behind them. Despite their fears, neither of them knew that was the last time they would ever see any of their family again.

***

Ghearl, Maya and Soolin had been walking for half the morning before trouble presented itself. Not in the way that Anya and Nivek had worried about; they met no-one on their path, but in the form of Maya's headstrong decision to go against what her parents and grandfather wanted.

The trio had reached a crossroads, coming out of the woods to negotiate open territory before reaching the start of the slopes that would lead them on their way, when Maya stopped unexpectedly, flinging her pack to the ground then throwing herself down next to it.

"Alright, I've had enough of this," she spat out, her smouldering temper winning out at last. "I'm not going any further."

"Don't be ridiculous Maya," Ghearl told her calmly, refusing to recognise her burgeoning tantrum. "You're coming with us to the Flood House and that's final. Your parents and I agreed."

"Yes, but I didn't," Maya fumed. "I wanted to go and stay with Salis. And that's just what I'm going to do."

She leapt to her feet with a renewed determination, slinging the pack over one shoulder and marching wilfully off back the way they had just come.

"Maya!" Ghearl shouted after his wayward granddaughter. "Come back here! Your parents entrusted me with your safety and I promised them I would take care of you. Your boyfriend won't be able to do that."  
"Yeah?" Maya yelled back over her retreating shoulder. "Well, how are you going to stop me?"

Soolin watched this exchange with interest. The concept of not doing what her parents told her was not exactly alien to her, but she at least understood that this was something that was very important to them, and therefore should be important to her.

"I'll tell."

It was the only thing that Soolin could think of to threaten her sister with. Maya swivelled round, pausing her stride to confront Soolin

"Oh, I'm petrified," Maya threw at her sarcastically, folding her arms.

"My bugbrat of a little sister is going to tell on me. Grow up Soozie, I'm not a kid any more. I can do what I want."

Maya's eyes were gleaming with rebellion and spite.

"Unlike you. Baby girls have to do what their parents tell them. So you can't go back and tell on me without getting into trouble."

"You should do what Mamma and Pappa told you."

Soolin stood firm by her conviction that what her parents decided was the right thing. "You'll only get into trouble, and I don't just mean with them."

"Oh what do you know?" Maya tossed back, turning around again. "And don't even think about following me. I know where I'm going."

With that she vanished into the forest, the gloom swallowing her up in an instant.

Ghearl hesitated; he knew he should chase after her, force her to agree to accompany him and Soolin, but he didn't want to have to take an eight-year-old girl on an unmarked path through the forest when he had no idea what could be lurking there, any more than he wanted to abandon a fifteen-year-old to the same situation. His choice was, however, taken out of his hands by Soolin herself.

"Well if she's going back," the little girl declared with sudden determination.

"Then so am I. I'm going back home."

She tugged her hand from his and headed after her sister into the forest, pulling out the tiny compass hanging around her neck.

"Now Linnie, don't be silly-" Ghearl began, but she was running already and faced with chasing one granddaughter over another, Ghearl chose the youngest and, he believed, the most vulnerable. At least he could still see her, he reasoned, starting after the disappearing blonde head that bobbed off through the trees.

"Linnie!" he called after her, but got no reply. "Soolin, come back!"

He glanced from side to side in the hope of catching a glimpse of Maya, but she had completely vanished. He swallowed his anger at how she had placed him in this situation and focussed on trying to catch up with Soolin, but he knew that, getting old as he was, he stood little chance of keeping pace with a determined eight-year-old.

He managed to keep up with her for a little while, her gleaming hair making it a little easier for him to see her in the darkened forest as she darted along, branches catching at her clothing and hair, loose rocks turning under her feet, but she kept her balance and her pace, and eventually he lost sight of her.

Ghearl hoped that she had enough sense to at least keep to the makeshift path. The compass would guide her well enough, but even after six years on this planet, he still didn't know all the animals that could be prowling here; animals that could quite easily carry off a defenceless small girl. Or a teenaged one.

Ghearl quickened his pace as best he could, hoping to catch up with Soolin as she tired out, trying to shake off the cold fear creeping along the back of his neck that they were all being observed by pairs of hungry eyes. He took out his own compass, muttering a prayer to forgotten gods he no longer believed in that, if he could not catch either, then that both of his granddaughters would reach their destinations unharmed. What would happen when they got there, however, was another matter and one he wasn't sure he could have any control over.

Soolin did not tire, though. Powered by a fierce conviction that if she could get back home quickly enough, her parents would be able to rescue her sister from whatever trouble she was sure to now be in, she made good time and, half crippled by a stitch in her side, her breath coming in tortured gasps, she reached the edge of the forest that signalled her family's land. Recognising where she was, she slowed down to a walk, tucking the compass back into her shirt. Before she could reach the house, however, she heard a familiar, terrifying sound.

Flyers.

Truly frightened at what this could mean, Soolin clutched at the straps of her bag, needing something to cling to in the absence of a parent, regretting having run away from her grandfather and suddenly very aware of the fact that she was alone in the forest.

Still determined, she walked on: she would be brave for her father, who she was going to see, but as soon as she came to the end of the trees, she froze.

Hidden as she was by the foliage, she could not be seen, but she had a clear view of the scene unfolding in front of her and she knew right away that something was already badly wrong. Her father was standing in front of the house, halted in the act of nailing boards over the windows by the arrival of the three flyers, now landed a little distance from the front of the house. The occupants of those flyers had climbed out and had made their way over towards Nivek, casually throwing open the gate and crossing the little farmyard that contained the family's animals, advancing towards the house.

Soolin could not yet see the faces of the approaching people and for that she was glad. The man in the eyeshades had frightened her enough when they were out in the fields, but now he was here, at her home, violating the sanctuary it had provided her for as long as she could remember. She bit down on the urge to run out towards her father, sensing that it would not be what he wanted from her.

"What do you want?" Nivek called out, although he already knew the answer.

"Surely you were expecting us?" the man in the eyeshades replied, his tone the same arrogant, mocking one he had employed before.

"I mean, we didn't send around personal messengers, but my employers have let it be known that the Open Planet designation went through yesterday evening. And I'm sure you know exactly what that means."

"Yes."

This did not come from Nivek, but from Anya, who had come out through the front door to stand on the porch behind her husband. A shotgun was set against her shoulder, aimed unwaveringly at the man in eyeshades, yet the pregnant belly straining against her chequered shirt made her seem very vulnerable, despite her determined stance.

At the sight of her mother yielding a weapon, Soolin dropped into a crouch, crawling forward to hide behind a gnarled old tree stump. It kept her hidden and gave her something to hold onto, but it could not take away the sheer terror that was seeping through her, freezing her body. She had no idea how to cope with what she was seeing, no precedent to draw upon. Her life so far had been a simple, happy one, safe in the protective embrace of her family, and now that was threatened and she could do nothing but hide and watch.

"It means if you don't get off our property, I'll shoot you," Anya told the four uniformed thugs in front of her, her voice and her eyes like stone, her aim perfectly steady.

"I'm afraid you're mistaken, dear lady," the man replied.

His eye fell on one of the piglets, trotting without concern across the yard and, quite casually, he raised his weapon and shot it. There was a flash, a horrible scream and it slumped to the ground, dead.

Soolin had to clap a hand over her mouth to stop herself from letting out a cry of her own. Tears started up in her eyes, not just at the shocking death of one of her beloved piglets, but at everything that was happening, terrible things that she did not understand, her fear and panic escaping her in tiny sobs. She was so caught up in the events in front of her eyes that she did not hear her grandfather finally catch up with her.

Realising that there was something not right, he crept up quietly and put his hand on Soolin's shoulder. She stifled a startled cry, glancing up at him, then flung her arms around him, desperate to find some comfort. He stroked her hair, feeling her slight body trembling against him, and tried to pull her gently away, but she refused, turning back to her parents and the people threatening them.

"I don't care," her mother was shouting, evidently in response to something the man had said. "You won't take this land from us. You have no right!"

"I have every right," the man replied coldly. "You, however, no longer have any. And we will take this land from you, whether you are standing there or not."

In response, Anya fired the shotgun at the man's feet, shattering the tightly-packed dirt in front of him so that it flew up at his face.

"That was your last warning," she called out to him. The man in eyeshades, however, gave her no such courtesy. He made a small, tight gesture with his hand and the three behind him raised their weapons and, ignoring the unborn life Anya carried inside her, they shot her down without mercy.

Soolin watched in absolute horror as her mother crumpled to the ground, ugly burn marks scorching her skin and her clothing, the shotgun clattering down alongside her.

"NO!" Nivek's horrified cry drowned out his daughter's scream at Anya's murder, escaping from her despite her grandfather's hand over her mouth, pinning her against his side to stop her from leaping up and running blindly forward.

Nivek snatched up the gun from his dead wife's side, aiming at the lead man, but multiple fire from his back-up cut Nivek down before he could let off a single shot and he collapsed to the ground beside Anya.

Frozen in shock and terror, Soolin and Ghearl watched from their hidden vantage point as the three uniformed subordinates moved forward, callously shooting down any animals that got in their way, and checked over the two motionless bodies that had been Nivek and Anya. They signalled back to their commander, who called out to them:

"Finish it. I don't want any trace left."

"What about the rest of the family?" the woman asked, as one of her male colleagues opened up the door to the house.

"Two brats and an old man?" the commander replied dismissively, already turning away. "Let them burn."

He made his way across the yard as his three subordinates went into the house.

They came out again within moments, hurrying across the yard to get out of range before a tremendous explosion rocked through the area, tearing the house where Soolin had grown up to pieces. She shrieked, the sound lost in the blast as her grandfather flung her to the ground, falling alongside her, his arm lying protectively across her back.

The four uniformed operatives returned to their flyers as if nothing of importance had occurred, abandoning what remained of the house to the blaze and leaving Soolin sobbing on the ground, unable to stop her mind from replaying the nightmare scene over and over again.

Hours later, a hovering rescue craft arrived to extinguish the raging fire and raze the gutted remains to the ground, erasing all trace that the family had ever been there.

But by then, Soolin and her grandfather had already gone, escaping through the forest to the Flood House.

They lived there for nearly five years.

***


	2. Chapter 2: Survival

**Part 2: Survival**

Later on, when she tried to recall what had happened in the aftermath of the murder of her parents, Soolin found she could not.

The terrible events at the house she could never forget, burned so deeply into her mind that for a long while, it was all she could see whenever she closed her eyes, but the trip to the Flood House was lost in the persistent state of shock that gripped her.

It took a long time for her to even begin to speak again, despite Ghearl's best efforts, and from a vibrant, laughing little girl, she became silent and withdrawn, spending hours just sitting staring at nothing, her eyes blank and dead.

Ghearl had his own worries - not just about Soolin, and recovering from his own shock and grief at losing his son, his daughter-in-law and unborn grandson in such a violent, appalling way, but also about what the future would hold, and about Maya.

He did not dare risk leaving the Flood House to try and find her, not when events like those he himself had witnessed were no doubt being carried out planet-wide.

He had no idea is Maya was still alive; if she had managed to reach her boyfriend and if she had, if Salis' family had still been there, or if they had managed to escape, or had also been murdered. The best he could imagine was that she may have reached his family's farm in time for them to take her away with them, but he knew that that was unlikely at best. What was far more probable was that his eldest granddaughter was also dead, as were Anya's parents and many of the other settlers on Gauda Prime.

That meant that his priority was Soolin. He did not really believe that they would be truly safe here in the Flood House, but he had no other choice, and so he focussed his energy on survival.

In between attempts to get Soolin to speak to him, he organised the contents of the Flood House to suit the two of them as best he could. Provisions would last for a while, and the small patch of rough land surrounding the house, originally intended for the animals to graze, might serve for growing a few additional foodstuffs.

In terms of other items, he was a practical man and he was sure he could adapt whatever they had to suit whatever they would need. Their living would be primitive, but it need not be too difficult or too uncomfortable. There was even a small locker hidden under Nivek and Anya's bed that contained the family's backup guns and ammunition, which he planned to use for hunting as soon as he felt he could leave Soolin alone for long enough. And, should it ever be necessary, he could use them to defend Soolin and the Flood House.

With that in mind, and in the hope of bringing the spark back into Soolin's eyes, he began to teach her how to survive. He had coped with his own emotional turmoil by absorbing himself in caring for her, but he knew it was important to teach her how to be self-reliant; after all, even if nothing else unpleasant happened, he would not be around to care for her forever. She seemed disinterested at first, but slowly, slowly, he caught her interest and he taught her how to cook, how to tend to the vegetable patch he was attempting to coax into existence from the coarse soil, how to mend clothing and to work the various ancient appliances around the shack.

It was a long, tiring process, but after many weeks, it started to take effect and Soolin began to emerge from her cocoon of grief and shock.

Although Ghearl knew that healing these wounds would take much longer, it was something of a relief to him that she at least seemed to have begun taking that path.

Her nightmares, however, were something that he did not know how to deal with.

At first, he had thought it best if she slept alongside him in what had originally been Nivek and Anya's bed, so that he could be there to comfort her if she woke in the night, and she seemed to take some comfort in this, snuggling close to him in her sleep, but even this could not stop the traumatic dreams from occurring.

Soolin refused to speak at first of the horrific events they both had witnessed for months after, and when she eventually did, it was in such dull, matter-of-fact tones that Ghearl was afraid she had changed so much, deep inside that he would never be able to reach it and restore her to her carefree childhood self.

So he focussed instead on more practical issues, and they managed to survive quite well. They lived totally alone at the house; the only contact they had with the outside world was when occasional flyers passed by overhead. Thankfully, this occurred seldomly - just the sound of a flyer was enough to send Soolin into a terrified panic attack that took Ghearl hours to calm her down from.

But other than that, life progressed for the two of them and, once the nightmares had begun to fade, so did any mention of the rest of the family, until it was as if they had never existed. Ghearl was not entirely comfortable with this, but he did not want to risk setting Soolin of into a relapse, so he let it go.

Then, when Soolin reached ten years old, he began to teach her how to shoot, and to hunt. He was surprised, and a little disturbed at how quickly she learned and at the aptitude she demonstrated in using the guns, both the handguns and the rifle. They were old-fashioned, low-tech weapons that still employed bullets, a fact that Ghearl was almost relieved by in light of what had happened to Nivek and Anya. He did not know what she remembered of her parents' murder, but having seen the effect a flyer had on her, he knew he did not want her to be using energy weapons.

The ease with which she killed concerned him - before, she had been upset when any of the animals that the family kept were killed for food, but now she killed them herself, tracking down wild animals in the forest and shooting them with calm efficiency.

Ghearl began to worry that perhaps he had taught her to survive a little too well. True, she did not show any pleasure in killing, that much he was grateful for, but she seemed to see it as necessary, and she acted accordingly.

Gradually, Ghearl realised that the Linnie he'd known, the happy little girl who had lived on the farm with her family, had almost entirely gone, and Ghearl wondered how much he was responsible for that change in his granddaughter. By focussing on the more practical elements of their survival, and in not knowing how to cope with emotional trauma, he had allowed Soolin to lock off her emotions somewhere deep inside.

She had not healed, but merely ignored the pain inside, leaving it shut away in a dark corner of her mind, but if he had mentioned this to her, she would have told him that he was right.

Although still only ten years old, she no longer felt that she was a child. At first, she had grieved for her parents and the life she had lost, but then something changed inside her, a part of herself she had not recognised before coming through, something hard and unyielding, angry rather than sad, and it began to take over the other parts of her mind. This side of her spoke quietly about what had happened, so that she no longer saw it as a terrible tragedy, but as a crime, one that should never be repeated.

_They were victims, _she told herself._ Your family allowed themselves to become victims, to let people kill them and take what they wanted from them. You must never let that happen to you. _

These words made sense to Soolin, and inside she became determined that she would learn to look after herself and do whatever needed to be done so that no-one would ever hurt her again. It was this part of herself that made her practise with the guns until she was more than capable of using them to defend herself if necessary.

The lesson she had learned from her mother's death was that if someone threatened you, then you had to shoot them first, before they could hurt you. Warnings served no purpose other than to allow the attacker time to strike before you were ready to shoot again.

With this in mind, Soolin practised not just shooting to hunt animals, but as if each target was one of the people who had killed her parents.

In her mind, she replayed it all, only this time she imagined how things would have been different if she had intervened. If she had known how to shoot, if she had had a weapon in her hand...

In her heart she knew she could not have done anything, but that made no real difference and she became coldly determined that one day, she would track down those responsible for her family's murders and make them pay.

Stuck as she was in this tiny house, way up in the hills with her grandfather, she had no idea how she would achieve this, but she was resolute that she would do it nonetheless. With that in mind, she turned her attention to other skills. Her grandfather had taught her how to look after herself, but she knew virtually nothing about the world outside her own existence, let alone other planets.

Even Earth, the planet of her birth, was a semi-mythical place to her, something she had never been told anything useful about, and she found that her natural curiosity was one of the few aspects of her personality that survived untouched. She tried asking her grandfather, but when it came to educating her beyond practical skills, Ghearl fell rather short of her expectations. A Gamma grade, born and raised within the domed cities until he had moved out to this frontier planet eight years ago, Ghearl was not a learned man, and what he could tell her about Earth was of no real use to her.

His knowledge of other planets, of history or politics, of society or indeed much beyond his previous work as a labourer and what he had already taught her, was severely limited, and his inability to answer her questions shamed Ghearl, although the fact that she was asking at all came as a relief to him, an indication that she was at least capable of expressing an interest in something other than bare survival.

But despite his efforts, Soolin grew steadily colder, more determined, until he felt that he did not know her at all.

And then one day, everything changed.

Life, such as it was, had gone on uneventfully at the Flood House for several uninterrupted years and by now Soolin was halfway through twelve years old and beginning the transition from child to woman, something Ghearl was more than a little uncomfortable with. He'd had no daughters of his own, had no experience in dealing with female adolescence and all that went with it, so he pretended that nothing was happening, continuing to treat Soolin as the child he believed himself to be better suited to caring for. He knew he could not continue this way forever, but as always, life caught up with him.

He and Soolin were outside, gathering firewood, when he was seized by a sharp stabbing pain, running through his entire body, paralysing him. As the sky turned black before his eyes, tiny stars exploding at the edges of his vision, he was dimly aware that he had fallen to the ground and that Soolin was by his side, pleading with him to get up, but then the blackness took over and he passed into unconsciousness.

He awoke back inside the house, lying on the floor with blankets over him and pillows beneath his head. Soolin had managed to drag him into the house - no mean feat for a twelve year old girl, but Soolin had grown up a farmer's daughter, and she was as tough as she was determined - but she could not lift him onto the bed, and so had created a makeshift one for him on the floor.

She was kneeling at his side like a guardian angel and at first glance, in his half-conscious, confused state, that was what he took her for. Her long blonde hair, caught at the back of her head in an untidy ponytail, shone in the afternoon sunlight, creating a halo around her head.

"Linnie?" he croaked, struggling to raise his hand towards her. She caught it between her own, holding it in her lap.

"I'm here, Granpa," she reassured him, her tone as adult as her manner, not that of the child she still was.

"I... I'm sorry. I should have told you. This has been a long time coming."

"Told me? Told me what? Granpa, what's happening to you?"

Ghearl closed his eyes, steeling himself.

"When we first arrived here, I contracted some kind of illness. Some of the other new settlers did too. We never really found out what it was, but we knew the medication we had would only serve to keep it at bay for a number of years, ten or fifteen at most. I suppose I've been lucky to survive this long, living out here."

"But what's happening?" Soolin insisted, managing only at a great effort to keep herself under control.

"I'm dying, Linnie. I'm sorry. I should have prepared for this."

"Dying?" Soolin cried out, panic winning out over any attempt to remain unmoved.

"But what can I do?"

"For me, there is nothing more than can be done," he told her, as gently as he could.

He was surprised to see the depth of her emotional response to the situation. He had come to believe that Soolin no longer cared about anything.

The feelings his condition provoked within her took Soolin by surprise as well. He was her grandfather, and she cared about him, but she thought that she had trained herself well enough by now to suffer anything without resorting to emotion. The realisation that there were still things that could hurt her was not a pleasant one.

"But you must listen to me, Soolin."

The seriousness of his tone, and the use of her full name momentarily pulled Soolin out of her despair.

"I don't have much time left; a few days at most. There are preparations you have to make before you leave."

"Leave?" Soolin repeated, startled.

"I can't leave here! Where would I go?"

"You can't continue to stay here, Soolin," Ghearl insisted, his tone still one of utmost sincerity.

"Not by yourself. I should not have kept you here this long. There must be some kind of organisation here by now, a place where there's order, someone who'll take you in, care for you better than I did."

"Granpa, you're not making sense," Soolin wailed, regressing to her former, more childish self as panic began to build up within her.

"We haven't left this place in years - there are bad people here, you told me so."

"I've heard nothing on the broadcasts to tell me otherwise," Ghearl corrected, his mind clearing a little.

"But it has been nearly five years now since - since the Open Planet designation. There must have been changes. There must be people here who can help you."

He raised a hand to stroke her hair.

"How will I find them?" Soolin asked, hopeless in her despair.

"I trust you," Ghearl replied, as if that solved everything.

"You're a bright little girl. And even if I couldn't teach you what you wanted to learn, you know enough to be able to survive, to live. Don't waste your life hiding here in this house."

Soolin smiled, a cold smile that did not reach her eyes.

"I have an idea of who to look for," she told him.

"There is... unfinished business that I should attend to."

Ghearl froze as he realised what she was talking about, staring at his granddaughter in disbelief.

"What - you can't mean - Soolin, no!"

Soolin did not reply, simply sat and smiled her glacial smile.

Ghearl struggled to pull himself closer to upright, grabbing hold of her wrist.

"You cannot think that way. Revenge would serve no purpose-"

"Oh, you think?" Soolin replied harshly.

"What about justice? That serves a purpose."

"Soolin, you can't - You're a child. You wouldn't stand a chance-"

"I can be patient. Haven't I been patient so far?"

"No! You can't do this! You must try, try to forgive them," Ghearl panted, fighting off the waves of pain and disorientation that threatened to close over him once more.

"Forgive them!" Soolin exclaimed, incredulous.

"Forgive? Are you mad? How could I ever forgive them? They are murderers!"

"And what would you be, if you were to seek revenge?" Ghearl pointed out, but Soolin was burning with anger and was not listening to him.

She pulled her arm free and got to her feet, stalking around the tiny room restlessly.

"I can never forgive," she spat.

"Never. Never."

"You must," Ghearl insisted quietly, lying back down.

"It'll destroy you if you don't. Grant an old man his dying wish, promise me you'll forgive them."

"Don't you dare use that to try and get me to make a promise I can't keep," Soolin shouted, accusing.

"If it's so damned important to you, how come you never mentioned it before now? Especially if you knew you were dying all this time!"

"I - I always believed that there would be time," Ghearl replied faintly, aware of how pathetic he sounded, how little chance he stood of convincing her now.

She was right, of course. He should have spoken sooner. There was a lot he should have done sooner, done differently, better. But it was too late now. His last chance to make amends, to try and help his granddaughter before she was left alone, was now.

Summoning his remaining strength, he reached out and grabbed hold of her ankle, yanking her off balance. She fell to the floor with a crash, a look of utter astonishment on her face.

You cannot do this," Ghearl told her, crushing her ankle as tightly as he could to reinforce his point.

"If you attempt it, it'll bring nothing but your death. And even if you succeeded, it wouldn't end your pain. Only forgiveness can."

She stared back at him, a spark of fear flashing in her wide blue eyes, but she said nothing.

"Promise me you will forgive them," Ghearl demanded stonily, his eyes boring into hers. "Promise me!"

There was a long pause, then eventually, she replied.

"I promise."

Ghearl released her ankle, falling back against the pillows with a sigh, visibly exhausted.

"There is one more thing. Your sister Maya. She might still be alive. If you find anyone who can help you, you should try to find her as well. She may well be all that is left of the family."

He looked over at Soolin and was taken aback to see that her eyes had filled with tears.

"You can't die," she said, so quietly he could barely hear her.

"You can't! I need you!"

She crawled over to him, collapsing at his side as the barriers broke down and her tears burst out of her. He lifted an arm to place across her back, and she pressed her face into his side, shaking with sobbing. He held her as she cried herself out. There was nothing else that he could do.

Three days later, he died, and Soolin buried him under the blossoming fruit trees behind the house.

With him died all that had remained of her childhood. She was truly alone in the world now, no family, no-one else at all.

She stood by the grave, staring at the crude marker she had placed at its head, the wind teasing her long loose hair.

Then, lifting her bag to her shoulder, she turned and walked away from the house that had been her home for almost five years.

She did not look back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3: Finding The Way**

In truth, Soolin had no real idea as to where she was going, or how she would even begin to find the people who had killed her parents, but she knew that she could not stay at the Flood House any longer.

Wary of who else she might find after leaving the relative safety of the high hills, she placed one of the handguns in a holster on her belt, the other in a pocket of her bag, determined that whoever she met, she would not become anyone's victim.

She was rather surprised that she did not encounter anyone at all for several days, just as she had been surprised that no-one ever found the Flood House, even during the rainy season. She assumed that some other provision had been made to cope; perhaps even an evacuation during the rains.

She hoped, bitterly, that at least some of the miners, knowing nothing of Gauda Prime and interested only in what material gain they could make, had been caught out by the sudden flooding of the lower ground that first year. Not those she was looking for, though; drowning would have been too good for them.

However, after over a week of aimless wandering, Soolin was forced to admit that she needed a change of plan. Or rather, a proper plan to start with.

Following her compass (and purposely heading anywhere expect the place where her old home had stood), she had finally begun to come across other people in the form of independent miners, working on individual claims, but had avoided confronting them, skirting around their rough settlements.

She knew that the people she was looking for were not actually miners but enforcers, presumably from one of the companies that had set up large-scale mining on the planet. She also knew it was entirely possible that her targets were no longer actually on the planet, especially after all this time, but she chose not to consider that, focussing instead on trying to find evidence of some kind of settlement where she could try to find out what the situation on Gauda Prime now was.

She was painfully aware of how isolated her life had been, both before and after the passing of the Open Planet designation, and she knew how much things were likely to have changed. Nevertheless, she was adaptable, and was confident that she could handle whatever life decided to throw at her next. After all, she reasoned, it couldn't be worse than what had happened to her already.

The first sign she had of anything approaching organisation came two weeks after she had left the Flood House, in the shape of a group of small huts gathered together in a clearing in the forest.

Soolin hesitated as she approached it. It was almost dark and raining, not the heavy, relentless rain of the flooding season, but a steady fall nonetheless. She didn't want to get too close in case there was a watch posted, despite the weather. But she was cold, wet through, tired, hungry and miserable. If there was any chance that this group could help her, intentionally or not, then she had to try.

She edged closer, one hand resting on her holster, straining her ears to listen for any sign of the camp's occupants. One of the first things she came across, to her amazement, was a round tent, empty of people but plainly a storage space of some kind, filled with food and supplies. Hardly believing her luck, she opened her bag, filling it with as much as she could carry, but before she could sling the bag back over her shoulder, a pair of voices loomed out of the darkness towards her.

Soolin froze, momentarily unsure of what to do, but under no illusion that if she was caught, she was unlikely to receive much of a welcome. Acting on instinct, she ducked beneath one of the tables, pushing against the fabric of the tent walls until she found a section loose enough for her to lift and crawl under, just in time. Two men came into the tent, carelessly allowing their voices to carry across to where Soolin was hiding, out among the trees but still keeping close to the camp.

"Bloody rain," one of them was saying.

"It ever do anything else on the soddin' planet?"

"You think this is bad?" the other replied.

"You've only been here a couple of weeks. Wait 'til it really starts."

"It gets worse?" the first voice asked in disbelief.

"Put it this way, mate," his companion continued.

"If you're gonna hang around on Gauda Prime when the rainy season starts, you better like swimming."

"Oh bloody brilliant. This'd better be worth it."

"It will be, don't stress it. The Anithat stuff gets the best price, but there're some new bits and pieces showin' up around these parts that the Corporation said they'll give us a good exchange for."

"Yeah?"

Interest sparked within the first voice.

"Yeah. And between you and me," the second voice sounded conspiratorial.

"It's gonna be worth more than a bit of rain. So stick with it mate."

Soolin crept a little closer, her attention caught by the mention of the Corporation.

Was that the main company running the mining extraction? At first, all she got were clanking, rustling sounds as the two men rummaged through contents of the tent, but then the first man spoke up again.

"I never had any dealings with the Corp meself," he said.

"What they like?"

There was a dismissive exhalation of breath from the second man.

"Bunch of wankers," he said.

"They think we're all just the grunt work and they'll do anything to try and rip you off. But you stand your ground and you'll be alright, just as long as you keep your gun in your hand and look like you mean business."

"What about the other dealers? They any better?"

"Hardly. I mean, they're all nasty pieces of work, but at least the Corp ain't tried to shoot us so they could take the money back after sale. Not yet, anyroad. Nah, stick with the Corp mate. They're not who I'd choose anywhere else, but here, well let's just say they haven't given me a reason not to sell to them yet, and you gotta take your chances where you can on GP."

"GP?"

"You really ain't been here long, have you? GP, Gauda Prime? Come on, don't tell me you're that slow?"

"Piss off. What time did'ya say the sale meet was tomorrow?"

"Dunno. About midday or summat."

"It take long to get there?"

"The Corp's base? Nah, not really. Not now the flyers are fixed anyroad. Without it, well, probably wouldn't take you more than a week or so to walk it."

The two men roared with laughter, although Soolin, crouched outside in the rain, didn't think it was particularly funny. Her flyer phobia had lessened somewhat over the years, but she still had no desire to get into one.

"How's your flying?" the second, older sounding man asked his companion.

"Shite," confessed the younger man.

"'Specially with all these bloody trees round here."

"Tell me about. All those bloody colonists, that's what it was. I mean, who wants to come out here to the back of beyond and grow trees? You gotta be pretty tapped, ain't you?"

Soolin bit down on the flare of anger that rose up inside her.

Control, she warned herself. You need to be in control, or you'll end up dead.

She forced herself to keep listening.

"Anyways, don't worry mate. Just go up, then keep heading north-west and you can't miss it. Takes up half the bloody continent."

Storing this information carefully, Soolin got up, turning to go; it was a start at least. And with the supplies she'd taken, she should have enough to make it there, even if it did take her a week to walk it.

"Hey!" one of the men shouted out suddenly, making Soolin jump.

"What's this? There's half missing!"

"You think someone's been helping themselves to more than their share?" the younger man said.

"No, we've all been in the same place most of today, what with all this rain. We got a thief, and I bet it's that lot out west way. They been comin' too close lately. You go get the others, I'll go scout out, see if I can see 'em."

There was a rustling that indicated the younger man leaving the tent, and Soolin took that as her cue to leave. She darted off into the forest, hoping to get far enough in to lose the miner before he saw her. She didn't think they'd be nicer to her if they caught her just because she was a young girl and not a rival miner.

In fact, she didn't want to know at all what they'd do to her. Ghearl may have tried to keep her a child, but that didn't mean she was totally naïve.

Thinking quickly, she ran to the base of one of the larger, more thickly foliaged trees and began to scale it. The branches weren't strong enough to take the weight of a fully-grown man - indeed they barely took her own slight weight - and she hoped that meant her pursuers wouldn't think to look up in the trees for their thief.

She climbed as high as she dared, then began to search for a suitable point to sit and wait out the night. She reached a clump of branches that looked as if they would support her and lowered herself gingerly onto them. To her relief, they held and she switched her pack around, placing it in the lap with the straps around her neck to stop it slipping and leaned back against the tree trunk, listening out for sounds of the miners below.

Several times, men and women passed by her tree but none chose to look up and eventually, she began to relax a little. The leaves and branches kept off a little of the rain, but she was already soaked through and didn't think there was much chance of her getting any sleep up a tree.

She was surprised then, to be woken by a shaft of sunlight peeking under her eyelids the next morning. She was still wedged into place in the tree, her head resting on her arms, folded on top of the pack in her lap.

She sat still, listening carefully but there was nothing but the sounds of birds and small animals rustling in the tree and so, slowly, her muscles creaking and complaining about a night spent up a tree, she climbed down. Switching her pack onto her back again, she risked a brief stretch, her joints cracking like gunfire.

Soolin froze, half-afraid that the noise would bring a whole pack of miners running, but again, there was nothing.

Presumably the miners had either gone to this sale meet the two she'd overheard last night had mentioned, or were at work excavating minerals, which meant she should be relatively safe. All the same, Soolin drew the gun from its holster and crept carefully away, keeping as far from the miner's settlement as she could.

North-west, the miner had said. She pulled out the compass hanging once more round her neck and followed it as best she could, keeping one eye on it, the other casting around for

unwelcome companions. She had considered travelling at night, so she wouldn't run into anyone else, but there was little ground cover to hide among if she slept during the day and she didn't fancy spending any more time up a tree than she had to. Besides, if she did run into anyone, she would prefer it to be when she could see them.

It was a long, difficult trek, but Soolin was as determined as ever, and she had every intention of reaching this Corporation complex, no matter what it took. She was used to living rough by now, but all the same, the trek took its toll on Soolin, and all her expertise and determination could do nothing against the fever she contracted.

She'd always been a robust child, didn't remember ever having been properly ill before. She put everything she had into pushing on, forcing herself to keep going until she got to this Corporation base, doing her best to ignore the excruciating headaches, the nausea, the violent swings between burning with heat and shivering with cold, whatever the weather. It was the disorientation that she found the hardest to cope with, her pain- and fever- blurred eyes unable to see clearly where she was, let alone what direction she was going in. Clinging to her little compass like a talisman, she kept on walking; several times, she almost headed straight into mining claims or camps, only avoiding detection by sheer luck. It was raining again, which did not exactly help matters and Soolin was beginning to despair that she would ever reach her target until eventually, she saw it, rising up in the distance through a break in the trees on the hillside ahead of her.

Instantly, she understood what the miner had said about it taking up half the continent - even from her far-off vantage point, she could see it was massive. Not just the gigantic silvered dome that appeared to house the base, but the outer complex as well, surrounded by layer upon layer of crude wires and fortifications.

Guard towers were positioned every couple of hundred metres or so, occupied by armed defenders with search lights set on top of the towers. A huge, equally well-defended set of gates marked the entrance to the complex; clearly, the Corporation were taking no chances on a planet that had no law. So how the hell was she going to get inside?

Soolin stopped, leaning against a tree to steady herself. The head pains had lessened recently, but the sickness and dizziness had, if such a thing was possible, gotten worse.

It was draining all her energy just staying on her feet, let alone thinking straight.

A rumbling noise began to build up, and through her streaming eyes, Soolin could see movement among the guards in the towers. Distant shouting drifted down to her, and the gates began to creak slowly open. The rumbling grew louder, and Soolin realised that it was coming from behind her, out of the trees.

This unexpected development panicked her, so she resorted to a known tactic and shinned up the nearest tree, clinging to the branches in desperation as her disorientation rose up in a wave, threatening to overwhelm her and tip her out of her precarious position. Breathing deeply to try and wrest back a modicum of control, she looked down and saw a procession of carts going past below. The carts, rough wooden constructions, were filled with large chunks of rock - presumably this was the raw mineral that was now mined on Gauda Prime - and were being pushed along by a group of dreary, exhausted looking people in grey coveralls.

Marching alongside these were a different set of people, clad in black uniforms and holding side arms. Through her fever-addled haze, Soolin realised with a flash that this Corporation didn't just buy mineral resources from the miners; they also mined it themselves, using enforced slave labour. The flashing wristlets that the people in grey all wore must be a part of it - some form of electronic restraints perhaps?

Soolin didn't have much experience with such things, but this much was clear, even to her - they hardly looked like volunteers, did they? A second realisation struck her - this could be her way in. She hung as far out of the tree as she dared, having to stop for a few precious seconds to control her dizziness once more, and glanced back at the line of carts. Yes, they were all high sided, open on top and there was no one behind the last in line. The people pushing the carts were using poles sticking out of the sides of them and so, bent over these, they might not see if she jumped down into the last one and hid.

It was a long shot, but she couldn't see any alternative. Hell, with the way she was feeling, it was lucky she could think at all.

Steeling herself, Soolin gathered herself together, and leaned out from her tree, waiting for the right moment. When it came, she almost missed it, a sudden wave of disorientation sweeping out of nowhere and in the end she half-jumped, half-fell into the cart. She landed heavily on a pile of rocks, pain shooting through her every fibre at the impact, her breath knocked out of her.

Lying awkwardly sprawled with a sharp rock poking her in the back, Soolin froze, listening for any sign that she had been noticed, but miraculously, it seemed she had not. The cart bumped and jolted along as it had before, triggering even more violent feelings of sickness within her, but she knew she could not remain where she was or she would be seen by the sentries as they approached the complex.

Rolling to her knees, breathing steadily to stop herself from vomiting or passing out, Soolin crawled forward into the front right hand corner, dragging the pile of sacks over herself until she was as well hidden as she could be. Only then did she relax a little, still having to fight to keep the nausea down, but able to lie down and rest, such as it was, for a while.

She stayed where she was until the carts had drawn to a complete halt. Muffled voices around her implied that she was now inside the complex, but all she could hear was her own breathing, so loud in her own ears she was convinced they could hear it outside. Eventually, the voices drew away and there was silence.

Gathering all her daring, Soolin slunk out from under the sacks and found herself in darkness. Evidently, the carts had been taken into one of the warehouses and left there. Soolin waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom, then clambered awkwardly out of the cart. As she jumped down, a fierce jolt of sudden pain shot through her - the fall into the carts had obviously done more damage than she'd thought.

She lay still for a moment, panting with pain, illness and exhaustion, her abused system on the verge of giving up, but Soolin was still determined not to. She'd come too far now, was so close...

Summoning her last vestiges of strength, she pulled herself up to her hands and knees and crawled on. The door to the warehouse was not locked - with security that high on the main gates and electronic restraints on the labourers, there was no need for it to be - and so Soolin hauled herself to her feet and crept out.

The persistent rain was keeping everyone indoors who didn't have to be out in it, and she was unobserved as she moved out across the bailey, unsteady but resolute. Now that her initial search was completed, now that she was inside the Corporation's base complex, her real task could begin.

But she did not get far. The consequences of living rough for weeks on end, of trekking miles across forest land and the fever, plus her new injuries had all taken their toll on Soolin; indeed, if anyone had known just what it had cost her to get there, they would not have believed she could have made it so far.

Soolin was deeply stubborn, her resolve unwavering and there was little that would have stopped her up until that point, but now it all became too much. A wall of absolute blackness shot up around her, disorientation filling her senses but by then she was past caring, and she fainted.

The discovery of a small blonde-haired girl lying unconscious in the rain caused some considerable surprise and confusion to those who occupied the Corporation's base complex. Those who had been on Gauda Prime for any length of time had very quickly learned the consequences of living anywhere with no legal system whatsoever and so did not trust anyone or anything, no matter how harmless it appeared to be.

There was law of a kind within the complex - the rules of the Corporation were expected to be upheld by employees, even on GP, with the noticeable difference that disobedience or failure could easily merit a death sentence, if that was what whoever was in charge felt was appropriate.

With this hanging over the heads of their employees, both those who were paid and those who were forced into labour, the Corporation found that they very quickly gained a small force of at least semi-reliable workers who were more concerned with their own advancement and with staying alive than with causing them any trouble. The outer defences kept out the freelancers and other criminals who had come to take advantage of an Open Planet, and so unexpected incidents were rare.

Therefore when Medic Lavizca was summoned to tend to an unknown little girl that appeared to have dropped out of the sky into the complex, he was at a bit of a loss. Seeing as how she was unconscious and obviously ill, she did not appear to be an immediate threat, and he allowed the man and woman who had found her to pick her up and bring her into the infirmary until a decision could be reached about what else to do with her. His primary examination gave no clues as to who she was, although the pair of guns that she carried raised suspicions.

"Well?" Security Officer Bradcombe asked, impatient as always.

"Make your report, medic. I haven't got all day."

"Yes." Lavizca hurried to reply.

"Well. She seems to be about twelve or thirteen years old. She's suffering from a fever, probably Selbii fever or something similar, they're not always easy to identify from a preliminary examination-"

The medic caught Bradcombe's eye and decided that it was probably best not to go into too much detail.

"I should be able to treat her," he continued. "Her other injuries are superficial and the rest seems to be as a result of exhaustion. She should recover in a few days or so."

"And?" Bradcombe pressed.

"And... what?" Lavizca asked, uneasy at this response.

"And... who is she? Where did she come from? How did she turn up inside the base with no-one having seen her before?"

"Well, I have no idea," the medic replied, deciding on honesty but still nervous.

"She has no identification and there was no match for her on any of there files. Nothing at all. At a guess, I'd say she must have come here with one of the freelancers."

"Her?" Bradcombe asked sceptically, indicating Soolin's unconscious form.

"A bit young to be an independent miner, wouldn't you say?"

"It's not unknown for miners to bring kids along if they're planning on staying at a site for a while," Lavizca replied, shrugging.

"Even here. After all, some of the Corporation bosses brought family. And she was carrying weapons."

"I suppose that's true," the officer relented, tapping his swagger stick against his leg thoughtfully.

"Let me know when she wakes up. I'll want to talk to her myself."

"Of course," the medic replied, obsequiousness hiding his intention to do nothing of the sort. He may have been considered as something of a mercenary by his profession, but that did not mean that he followed whatever orders he was given without question. Especially when if concerned pretty little girls, of which there were very few in this base. He wanted to talk to her himself when she woke up.

It took several days for the fever to break, but once it did, Soolin's recovery advanced rapidly. In that time, news of her discovery had spread and a number of people had begun to take an interest in this mysterious arrival, so much so that Lavizca half-considered asking for a guard to be placed at the door. There didn't appear to be anything sinister in this interest, although you never knew with some of these types, Lavizca thought sourly. He wished once more that he had been taken on as medic for those who lived within the safety of the domed structure; the administrators rather than the enforcers, treating mild upsets rather than terrible injuries caused by mining accidents and drunken brawls.

He comforted himself with the thought that at least he had the little girl to treat and to brighten his work, at least for a short while. And now that she had come round, he could talk to her too.

Soolin was a little taken aback when, on waking, she was told she had been unconscious for the best part of a week, but decided to use this to her advantage and feign confusion and memory loss so as to avoid answering any of their questions.

By playing dumb, she appeared more vulnerable and inspired a protective, almost paternal streak in Lavizca that he had not previously known to be there.

On finding that she claimed to remember nothing about who she was and how she had got there, he was forced to summon the security officer, but not before he had given her a name: Perdita.

Soolin knew she could not risk using her real name - she doubted that anyone would remember an inconsequential, supposedly dead child after nearly five years, but there might be records of some kind that would give her away.

Medic Lavizca, it turned out, was an avid reader of prehistoric Earth literature, and he had come across the name Perdita in an ancient play, meaning 'lost one', which he thought suited his latest charge rather well.

Officer Bradcombe, however, was less amused. He disliked mysteries, preferring tidy solutions to loose ends, and he had been expecting a straight answer from this girl when she woke up. He had little patience with children, and wanted her off his hands as quickly as possible.

"You can't just throw her out!" Lavizca protested, on hearing the officer's intentions.

"Why not?" Bradcombe replied, dismissing the other man in his mind already, casting his eye over a pile of documents on his desk.

"She is of no use to us and I have better things to do than waste my time on children."

"She's hardly a danger to us, and she isn't that much trouble," Lavizca found himself arguing.

"My staff and I can take care of her easily enough."

"And why should I allow that?" Bradcombe demanded.

"She is costing us money and resources. We are not running a charity here."

"But she doesn't have anywhere to go! She doesn't even know who she is!"

"Then why should it matter to her whether she stays or goes? For all we know she has family out there who can take her back."

"I don't think so," Lavizca replied.

"I still don't know how she got here, but if she'd been missed, surely anyone would have come for her by now? I mean, if you were searching for someone, wouldn't here be the first place to come to? No, I think her family are probably dead. Most likely they were miners killed in an accident. Additional trauma would account for the memory loss more than Selbii fever."

"Or they abandoned her here when she got ill," Bradcombe added.

"Just another brat for someone else to feed and look after. No, I won't allow her to stay here."

"No!" Lavizca yelled, thumping his fist down on the officer's desk. A jolt of fear ran through him at the dangerous look on the security officer's face, but he pressed on regardless.

"Why not make her a ward of the Corporation? That way she's our responsibility, but she can earn her keep."

"Earn her keep?" Bradcombe repeated, as if the words were distasteful to him.

"By doing what? I don't need children working for me."

"Then I'll go over your head!" Lavizca shouted, his determination not to let 'Perdita' come to harm making him rash.

"Someone will do it. Someone-"

"Very well," Bradcombe cut him off, his voice deceptively calm.

"If it means so much that you have to shout at me, I'll grant it."

"You, you will?" Lavizca asked in disbelief.

"You'll make her a Corporation ward?"

"Yes," Bradcombe replied, already turning his attention away.

"As soon as she's fully recovered, she can join the work forces in the mines. Let her 'earn her keep' that way."

"No!" Lavizca shouted, realising how he had been tricked.

"You can't! She's a kid!"

"There are other children working there," Bradcombe said.

"Now get out of my office and stop wasting my time. I'll send an escort for her in a few days."

"No!" Lavizca repeated.

"She isn't well enough yet - I won't-"

"GET OUT!" Bradcombe yelled, standing up.

"Get out of my office immediately or I'll have you taken out and shot!"

Lavizca, recognising this as more than just an angry threat, backed down, heading back to the infirmary shaking with fury. To go through all that and to lose... and in such a way. Even if she had not been recovering from illness, he doubted that little 'Perdita' would survive the mines.

Bradcombe was right, there were other young people working there, but she was so slight, so delicate... Bracing himself for his task, Lavizca went back into 'Perdita's' room to break the news to her. He expected her to be terrified; to weep and cling to him in fear, but she seemed barely disturbed when he told her.

"I sort of expected as much," she said, sounding almost apologetic.

"I mean, you've done so much for me already. I thought I'd have to start working soon."

"Not right away," he reassured her, marvelling at her calm.

"I'll do whatever I can to make sure you don't leave here until you're well."

"I'm feeling much stronger," she told him, smiling up from the bed, looking pale against the white sheets, but better than she had done since he'd met her.

"And I'm grateful for everything you've done, I really am."

In reality, Soolin was a little unnerved at how attached to her the medic had become, not something she was expecting from anyone associated with this Corporation, but she was glad that she had at least been taken in, even if only at this level.

The concept of working in the mines did not frighten her - she was used to hard work, after all - although it did put a bit of a dampener on her fledgling plans. But she was inside the complex and that was a start. To be honest, for all his help, she would be glad to leave the infirmary and escape Medic Lavizca's attentions; she didn't think all the examinations he made on her were strictly necessary.

So when the escort came for her three days later, she was ready to go with them. Lavizca hovered around them, protesting all the way that this was wrong, that she wasn't yet well, that this was cruelty, not practicality, but he was ignored.

Soolin let him hug her goodbye, more in the hope that it would shut him up than anything else, and walked out of the infirmary to face her future. Her possessions were still confiscated - the guns, she was not exactly amazed at, but she would have liked her old clothes back at least.

Instead, she was given a grey coverall and also fitted with a flashing wristlet, just as she had seen on the labourers on her arrival here. Her original assessment of an electronic restraint was not far off. One of the guards accompanying her offered a half-explanation as it was put on - it registered her location with a central computer, and would trigger alarms if Soolin tried to go into restricted zones. If she was found to be anywhere other than where she should be, the guard added with a sadistic smirk, it would administer an electric shock. Fatally so, if the person operating the control so wished.

It also monitored her heart rate and other basic health measures, should anyone care sufficiently to check them. With that, Soolin was delivered to the barracks-type accommodation that housed the forced labourers and left there.

None of the other workers made any effort to speak to her or explain what she should do, so Soolin sought out an empty bunk and lay down on it, trying to gather her thoughts together. It had been a long time since she had lived with anyone except her grandfather, and even before that, she had known few people outside her family and so she was unsure of how to proceed.

She was a quick learner, and had picked up much useful information in her time in the infirmary, especially about manipulating people. By appearing more vulnerable than she actually was, she wasn't seen as a threat and consequently was either ignored or made people feel they should protect her. While she did not want anyone's protection, she also didn't want to attract any suspicion that she was anything other than a defenceless child. So for the time being, she would keep her head down, watch and observe, until she had learned enough to consider a next step in her plan.

Whatever it took.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part 4**

The work that was required of Soolin in the mines turned out to be straightforward enough. Most of those under the age of sixteen were generally kept out of the actual extraction areas, which she was glad of, being used instead to sort the minerals once dug out, load carts, haul smaller loads across the site and other odd jobs.

On occasion she was called upon to scout ahead of the extractors, her slight body squeezing through gaps where others could not, following hand-held detectors to discover the seams and deposits underground wherever natural caves opened up. But mostly this was done using machinery and she was left to exhaust herself daily lugging rocks about. That was not to say that her work was safer than if she had been used to extract minerals. Accidents were frequent in the sorting rooms, mostly whenever raw lumps of mineral were dumped onto the conveyor belts by machinery, fragments flying out and embedding themselves into anyone who happened to be within range. One boy was half-blinded by a tiny shard that snapped off and smashed into his eye; another had an arm broken when a rock was flung from the belt.

The adults who worked within the mines didn't fare any better; at least one woman was killed when a shored-up extraction tunnel collapsed on her and Soolin didn't doubt that there were other accidents that she didn't hear about. Conversation was not considered a priority among her co-workers, especially not during working hours, when overseers were usually keen to mete out sadistic punishments to anyone who didn't seem to be working hard enough, or just got in their way.

There had been a little interest in her to begin with, especially when she confessed to being an amnesiac, but as soon as the others realised that this meant she could tell them nothing about herself, this interest quickly tailed off.

She managed to dredge a few bits of information out of the woman in the next bunk, a sour faced woman named Majrica. Majrica, it appeared, had been born and raised on Gauda Prime and as soon as she and her husband Venik heard of the Open Planet designation, they tried to leave on a transport, only to be rounded up by the Corporation. Venik had been shot trying to escape early on and Majrica had been working in the mines ever since.

Consequently, Majrica knew virtually nothing about what was happening outside the complex, although she had heard something about the number of criminals and outlaws that had taken over whatever parts of Gauda Prime that were left after the mining expansion. Listening to Majrica's dull exposition, Soolin realised how fortunate she had been not to have been confronted by any of these people on her journey, particularly after she had become ill, although she reasoned that those who came here seeking to take advantage of the Open Planet system would probably not be attempting to share living space with those who came to mine.

Life continued its uneventful turn - or as uneventfully as it could in a mine where people were hurt or killed on a regular basis - for a few weeks as Soolin began to settle into her new life as 'Perdita'.

She thought it best to keep this name rather than use her own, even among other miners. It was always possible, of course, that some of her new colleagues had known her and her family, but she dared not ask in case anyone made a connection. And besides, she knew all she wanted to about her family; what she wanted was information about those who had killed them.

So she kept her head down and became a diligent worker, restraining the anger inside her and channelling it into her tasks, forcing herself to pay attention to what she was doing so as to avoid injury. She had vowed that she would do anything to achieve her goal, whatever it took, and that was precisely what she intended to do, even if it seemed she was wasting her time and efforts here. She was just biding her time, paying her due until such a time when she could make a move, catching them off-guard when the apparently harmless, submissive 'Perdita' revealed her true colours.

The situation was taken out of her hands one morning when, six weeks after she had arrived there, work in the sorting warehouse was interrupted by a peculiar siren, its piercing wail cutting through all the other noise. Events ground to an abrupt halt, the conveyor belt winding down as everyone hurried to line up along the wall.

Confused, but having learnt right from her first day that the best way to get along here was to do whatever you were told to and whatever everyone else did, Soolin followed suit.

"The Head Surveyor!" announced the chief overseer from the door as it was flung open. The workers bowed their heads in a dutiful line, removing the faceguards they wore as a cursory precaution against the dust from the raw materials, and folded their hands together.

Copying this, Soolin could not see who it was that came in and began to examine the machinery. Inspections were sporadic in both the mines and the warehouses, with the overseers usually showing more interest in production rates and efficiency than the operation of the machinery or situation of the workers, but Soolin had not heard of the Head Surveyor before. He took his time in looking over all of the operation, then wandered over to the line of workers, intending to inspect them as well.

Occasionally, he paused in front of one of them and one such instance was in front of Soolin. She watched his expensive-looking boots, immaculate despite the dust and debris of the warehouse, move into her line of sight and found her eyes were drawn inexorably upwards until she could see his face.

In his mid-forties, Head Surveyor Korenn was still a striking man, his dark hair untouched by grey, his eyes having lost none of their piercing quality despite the acquisition of fine lines around them. Soolin's blue eyes met his dark ones, calm and unafraid, despite the almost inaudible hissing from the boy next to her that she should keep her head lowered. The Head Surveyor returned her gaze for a few moments, assessing, then he moved back, gesturing to the black uniformed guard at his side.

The man, his face half-hidden by a plastic mask, stepped forward and brutally struck out at Soolin with his gun. She raised her arms to ward off the blow, but did not move quickly enough and was caught a glancing blow across the face, just beneath her right eye, knocking her backwards off her feet.

Soolin landed heavily in the dust, her hand raised to her wounded face, looking back up at the Head Surveyor. He wore a look of unmistakable satisfaction, but this time he did not meet her eyes, already moving off along the line once more.

"Back to work, all of you," he barked, striding towards the door. The overseers began to grab the workers, shoving them back to their positions as Soolin pulled herself upright on unsteady feet, brushing dust from her overalls. She stared after the disappearing Head Surveyor; he could feel her eyes on his back and it unnerved him.

One of the overseers grabbed Soolin's arm, pulling her away.

"There you go, brat," the woman sneered.

"Now you know what happens when you step out of line."

"I've always known that," Soolin murmured, her eyes still turned towards the door that the Head Surveyor had vanished through.

"But I had to see him. To know he wasn't-"

The overseer barely heard her.

"You got lucky this time," she snapped, yanking Soolin's arm to hurry her back to her place.

"You do that again, he'll probably have you shot."

Soolin ignored this and resumed her work; threats from the overseers were as commonplace as the accidents and, realistically, less worrying. She was actually a little relieved that the Head Surveyor wasn't one of those she had seen murder her parents. Although she didn't really care who they were, she hoped that they would not be anyone who would be too difficult to reach when the time came.

She was more than a little taken aback when, on returning to the barracks at the end of the shift, she received a summons to the office of the Head Surveyor.

She hadn't though her disobedience merited such a summons - surely if he wanted her punished, then he could have that done without attending to it himself?

One of the black-uniformed security guards came to fetch her, adjusting her wristlet to allow her to cross into the building that housed his office without setting off any of the alarms. He held his gun at waist level, keeping it trained on her all the way, which Soolin found almost amusing. What did he think she was going to do? Attack him or the Head Surveyor with her bare hands? She knew all too well that the wristlet would be activated almost as soon as she'd begun; another problem that she needed to find the solution to.

The guard led her to an unmarked door, knocking to gain admittance but not accompanying her in. He closed the door behind her, leaving her alone with the Head Surveyor, who was sitting at his desk, apparently absorbed in reading the display on his computer screen, not looking up at her arrival.

She approached the desk, unsure of what to expect, and stood there waiting until he closed down the screen and turned to face her.

His eyes travelled over her with the same assessing look she had seen him use earlier, taking in her torn and filthy work clothes, her dust - dulled hair, the blossoming bruise under her right eye and the fresh laceration on her left forearm.

"What happened to your arm?" he asked, indicating her injury and taking Soolin by surprise.

"I - there was an accident... with the conveyor belt. I got hit by a piece of rock-"

"Show me," he commanded, getting up and coming around his desk.

Soolin hesitated, then rolled up her sleeve, wincing as she peeled the material away from the wound, half-stuck to her skin with dried blood.

Head Surveyor Korenn took her arm, inspecting the wound as if it was a piece of faulty machinery. Soolin clenched her jaw together to keep herself from crying out with pain as he twisted her arm from side to side to examine the extent of the injury.

"Not too bad," Korenn announced, dropping her arm again.

"Come with me."

Taken aback, Soolin followed his purposeful stride out of the room and away down the corridor, the armed guard shadowing them.

Soolin tried to take in as much as she could of her surroundings, noting that this building, although constructed of far superior materials than those used to build the workers barracks, was still rather shabby and, in places, shoddily constructed.

Clearly anything outside of the gleaming silver dome was not deemed important enough to be constructed with very much care and attention, let alone expensive substances. She wondered how long they intended to remain here - how long did it take to empty a planet of minerals anyway? She remembered her parents' conviction that it was all a temporary measure, that law and order would be restored within months, but she had seen no sign that this was anyone's intention, even after five years.

In fact, the lack of any legal system was working in the Corporation's favour; there was nothing to stop them enslaving Gauda Prime's residents.

Korenn halted abruptly, causing Soolin to narrowly avoid colliding with the back of him.

"Here," he announced curtly, pushing open the door and Soolin found herself in what appeared to be a slightly more up-market, if smaller version of the infirmary she had been treated in previously.

A medic - Soolin was thankful it was not Medic Lavizca - clad in a shining white overall, came out and began, unbidden, to examine Soolin's arm. He was no more gentle than Korenn had been, but seemed to know what he was doing, placing Soolin's arm into a piece of complicated-looking machinery. A metallic band slid out of it and clamped Soolin's arm into place. She started back, trying to pull her arm free, but the medic placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Remain still," he commanded, not really paying any attention to her as a patient, seeing her more as a problem that required a solution.

A series of multicoloured beams shot out from the part of the machine over her arm, playing over the wound. The laceration wasn't a deep one, but the skin surrounding it was badly bruised and there was always the danger of infection from all the mineral dust that got everywhere. Soolin had not been expecting any medical help - that was reserved for those who suffered serious injuries, although Soolin suspected that anyone hurt so badly they could no longer work were disposed of rather than healed.

This sudden turn of events puzzled Soolin - why was this man helping her? He didn't seem to be interested in her as a person, any more than the medic was.

The machine concluded its work, snapping off the beams, the restraining band retreating back into it.

Soolin withdrew her arm in amazement. The bruising had almost vanished, the gash pulled neatly together, leaving only a fading scar.

"There should be no need for further treatment," the medic spoke to Korenn in a brisk manner, but without disrespect.

"The scar will disappear in time."

Korenn nodded, pulling Soolin away without a word and taking her back to his office.

He sat back down in his chair behind his desk, leaving her waiting in front of it again.

"Do you know why you got that?" he asked, indicating the remaining bruise under her eye.

Soolin was at a loss as to how to respond. Was this man purposefully trying to confuse her?

"It is because of discipline," he told her, the question apparently a rhetorical one.

"If I am to run an efficient mining operation, then I must have discipline among my workers and I am not concerned about how it is enforced. You were insolent this morning and were punished accordingly. Do you understand?"

Soolin nodded, still holding her now-healed arm protectively.

"But as to your arm... I wanted you to see that we are capable of looking after you, if we choose to."

Soolin said nothing, not sure what it was he wanted from her.

"And that is why I brought you here. I want..." Korenn hesitated, obviously unsure of how to proceed. He got up abruptly, crossing the room to a small wall cabinet, from which he took out a bottle of greenish liquid. He poured out a glass and drained it in one gulp, then poured another, carrying it with him back to his desk.

"I want you to come and live with me."

Soolin took an involuntary step backwards. Where had that come from? And what could he mean? What would a man like Korenn want with a twelve-year-old girl? Soolin knew she was hopelessly naïve about certain matters, but even she knew that there were several ways that that could be interpreted.

Korenn looked up at her in irritation.

"There is no need to act like that. I do not mean-,"

What he did not mean, Soolin never found out. Korenn took another gulp from his drink, slamming the glass down on the table.

"Perhaps you have heard that my wife and I no longer live together. We separated a few years ago and... a few women have taken her place since then. But there is another... space in my family now, and it is that position that I wish you to take."

Soolin looked back at him with suspicion, but Korenn was not watching her, his eyes fixed on some distant point.

"Some months ago I lost my daughter. Alyena. She was a little older than you, I think. Fourteen."

His eyes moved back over to Soolin, but his gaze was far away, residing with his thoughts of his daughter.

"Lost?" Soolin spoke up finally.

"It was a long illness," he told her, still distant.

"I am told there was nothing more that could be done for her."

His eyes snapped clear all of a sudden, fixing Soolin with a piercing gaze.

"I want you to take her place."

"Take her place?" Soolin repeated in disbelief.

Of all the things she had imagined when she was summoned to the Head Surveyor's office, this particular occurrence would never have entered her mind.

"You mean, you want me to replace your daughter?"

The man stared back at her, his face expressionless.

"In a manner of speaking. I would adopt you and you would become my official daughter. What do you say?"

Soolin considered this with care. Part of her did not believe that this was what Korenn meant at all, that this could not be happening. Why would anyone as powerful as Korenn want to take someone who was virtually a slave to act as their daughter?

All she could think was that his grief had somehow unhinged him, although it did occur to her that perhaps he thought taking someone out of the mines would mean that they were easier to control, that they would be so impressed by his power and status, and so desperate to get out of the mines that they would agree to anything.

Another part of her was saying, loud and clear, that this was the best thing that could have happened; it would get her into a position not quite of power, but at least one of relative freedom, one where she stood a better chance of achieving her goal. And she would only have to submit to one man, rather than the many people who had the ability to threaten and control her as an enforced worker.

To accept was plainly the best thing to do, but Soolin was hesitant, suspicious that such an offer was bound to have a catch.

"What would you want from me?" she asked, trying to see behind his eyes.

"What would I have to do?"

"Considerably less than you have to do here," he replied, irritated, having expected her to collapse at his feet in gratitude rather than question him with such composure.

"When I say you would become my daughter, I mean it. No child of mine would have to work. You would receive an education and you would have the protection that my name affords. Surely you can see the advantages of such an offer?"

He stood up, leaning across the desk towards her.

"Oh yes," Soolin replied.

"I just wanted to make sure of exactly what you meant before I gave you my decision."

"Well?" he asked, impatient now, walking around the desk to stand before her.

"This is not an indefinite offer. I require an answer now, or you will go back to the mines and not hear from me again."

"The answer is yes," Soolin replied.

"Did you ever have any doubt about that?"

"It would have questioned your intelligence if you had declined," Korenn agreed.

"What is your name?"

"You don't already know?" Soolin asked, surprised. She had expected Korenn to have had her background investigated before making such an offer.

"Your past is irrelevant to me," he said, as if reading her thoughts.

"When you become my adopted daughter, whatever you have been will cease to exist, a slate wiped clean."

Soolin caught the ironic smile that tried to surface at that.

"I don't have a past," she told him bluntly.

"Not that I remember anyway. I don't even know my own name."

Korenn's eyes narrowed as he took this in.

"You're the mysterious new addition, are you? The 'ward' of the Corporation. Well that makes everything easier; in a sense, I have adopted you already. You really don't know who you are?"

Soolin shook her head.

"No. I had Selbii fever and the doctor said that was probably the cause of my memory loss. I don't remember anything before I arrived here," she lied.

"So what name do you use?" Korenn asked.

"Or shall I choose one for you?"

For some reason, this thought repelled Soolin. She was prepared to go along with this man's flawed attempt to replace his daughter, but found she was unwilling to give up every part of herself to his control.

"The medic who treated me when I got here called me 'Perdita'," she said.

"He told me it means 'lost'."

"An educated man," Korenn replied, impressed.

"And very apt of him; not many would have thought of that. Do you like that name?"

"I have no other."

Soolin found herself to be unperturbed by the web of lies she was creating.

"Then it will have to suffice," Korenn said, thankfully prepared to let it drop.

"Now, as to the arrangements. It will take time for everything to be completed, so for the time being you will have to return to your work. There is nothing that I can do to change that."

His tone was brusque, businesslike, as if he was dealing with a miner about a sale of minerals.

"I will send someone for you when all is ready."

"Wait." Soolin was not prepared to leave it at that.

"What else should I expect?"

"What do you mean?"

"If I am to be your adopted daughter, you're just going to accept me like that?"

"No, you will have to be re-educated if you are to be suitable. And it will only become permanent if I am satisfied with your progress."

"Re-educated?" Soolin queried, suspicion rising once more.

"I'm not sure I like the sound of that. What does it entail?"

"Precisely what it sounds like," Korenn snapped, tiring of the exchange.

"Do you really think I would take in some urchin without ensuring first that she could be taught how to behave herself? You have not been raised a lady."

"You don't know how I was raised," Soolin shot back.

"Even I don't know that."

A heavy silence met her words, Korenn's face darkening as he moved towards anger.

"That is something else that must be dealt with," he told her, grabbing her arm with one hand and taking hold of her face with the other.

"I told you I must have discipline; that includes my family. You will learn to do whatever I say or you suffer the consequences. Remember, until I say so, you are just another rock breaker; don't fool yourself into thinking that your resemblance to my daughter makes you special."

He pushed her away roughly, stalking back to his desk.

That explained something, Soolin thought. There had to have been a reason as to why he'd picked her. She watched him for a moment, considering her future. She could not afford to refuse this man, but it would be difficult to take on this role. Although, she reflected, it could not be more difficult than trying to survive in the sorting warehouse, and she would have time to learn how to manipulate this man.

"I'm sorry," she said, lowering her eyes, deciding to play passive for the time being, until she knew how to handle the situation better.

"That's better," he told her, satisfied by her reaction.

"You may go. Expect someone to collect you."

Soolin looked up once more, trying to meet his eyes, but he had re-opened the computer screen, his attention already moving away from her. She went over to the door, but paused in the act of opening it as a thought occurred to her.

"You didn't tell me your name," she called out to him.

"Or do you want me to call you Father?"

She could not keep the trace of bitterness from her tone.

The man at the desk froze at her words, his face expressionless but Soolin could see that she had hurt him. Maybe he really had loved his daughter after all.

"My name is Korenn," he said, his voice carefully neutral.

"Nikos Korenn. Now get out."

Soolin did, closing the door behind her a little harder than was necessary.

A clamour of emotions were fighting to rise up within her as the armed guard escorted her back out of the complex and it took a great deal of self-control for her not to try and flee. Wrestling to keep her emotions in check, she examined them in turn, dispassionate and as distantly as she could.

For some reason, Korenn had frightened her, not he himself but something about him and his offer. Perhaps it was the thought of becoming someone's daughter again, no matter how peculiar and artificial the circumstances, that had provoked such strong emotional responses.

On another level, she found herself halfway towards tears, an urge she shoved away.

As a child, Soolin had tried not to cry so she would not feel she was disappointing her father, wanting to always be brave for Nivek, and since the death of her grandfather, she had cried for no-one and nothing. Left with no-one she cared about, she intended to keep things that way, hiding her feelings now so that no-one would learn anything about her. And so far, it was working.

No-one here knew who she was and they didn't know that she hated them. Not yet.

But they would, she had sworn that much. She may have promised her grandfather that she would forgive them, and truly intended to keep that promise; she would have plenty of time to work on that after she had tracked down those responsible and made them pay.


End file.
